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The energy sector contributed around 145 million tonnes (Mt) of methane emissions in 2024, with oil and gas facilities accounting for over 80 million tonnes, according to the International Energy Agency’s (IEA) Global Methane Tracker 2025.
Methane is a greenhouse gas responsible for around 30 per cent of the rise in global temperatures since the Industrial Revolution. Its levels in atmosphere are growing faster than other greenhouse gases, with its concentration being two-and-a-half times higher than the preindustrial era.
The three main sources of methane include agriculture, energy and waste sectors. The energy sector — including oil, natural gas, coal and bioenergy — accounts for more than 35 per cent of methane emissions from human activity, the report highlighted. In the energy sector, oil operations injected around 45 Mt of methane in the atmosphere, natural gas operations released nearly 35 Mt and abandoned wells around 3 Mt.
The IEA analysis traced an additional 2 Mt of methane leaked from end-use equipment. Coal, too, contributed more than 40 Mt of methane emissions, including over 4 Mt from abandoned mines and around 1 Mt from end-use equipment.
Bioenergy followed coal. Around 18 Mt was from the incomplete combustion of bioenergy, mostly from the traditional use of biomass. This includes biomass like charcoal, wood, agricultural waste and animal dung used for cooking and heating in developing economies.
Another 2 Mt was from modern bioenergy production. Modern bioenergy technologies include liquid biofuels produced from bagasse and other plants, bio-refineries, biogas produced through anaerobic digestion of residues and the like, according to International Renewable Energy Agency.
The report underscored the need to address emissions from abandoned facilities. IEA estimated around 8 million abandoned onshore oil and gas wells are present globally, as well as a large number of abandoned coal mines. Both sources, it added, would be the world’s fourth-largest emitter of fossil fuel methane.
The report reiterated that with current technologies, around 70 per cent of methane emissions from the fossil sector can be reduced. For oil and gas sectors specifically, around 75 per cent of emissions can be reduced through well-known measures like upgrading leaky and high-emitting equipment or plugging leaky wells.
Among countries, China leads the world in methane emissions from fossil fuel operations, followed by United States, Russia, Iran, Turkmenistan, India, Venezuela and Indonesia.
Measures like plugging and monitoring closed down wells, sealing abandoned coal mines and directing methane flows to energy use or oxidation technologies, could help address this problem, said IEA.
There are opportunities in the coal sector as well. According to IEA, methane emissions could be cut by 50 per cent by effectively utilising methane in mines, or by deploying flaring or oxidation technologies when energy recovery is not viable.
For emissions from bioenergy due to incomplete combustion of bioenergy, universal access to clean cooking and modern heating could help. Biogas and biomethane are considered low-emissions gases. While the former can be used to generate heat and electricity, the latter can substitute natural gas. “Without careful handling, methane leaks along biogas and biomethane supply chains can undermine — or eliminate entirely — the benefits of switching from natural gas to biogases,” the report read.
Deploying targeted methane mitigation solutions in the fossil fuel sector would prevent a roughly 0.1°C rise in global temperatures by 2050, the IEA report highlighted.
Despite opportunities, actions on the ground have been limited. Existing pledges would cut fossil-fuel methane emissions by 40 per cent by 2030. However, only half have provided detailed policies and regulations to achieve these cuts.
Only few countries or companies have developed real implementation plans for these commitments, and even fewer have demonstrated emissions reductions that can be verified since the launch of the Global Methane Pledge (GMP; aims to collectively reduce global methane emissions by at least 30 per cent from 2020 levels by 2030) in 2021 and the Oil and Gas Decarbonization Charter (aims to reduce the greenhouse gas pollution of 50 major oil and gas companies) in 2023. GMP covers countries that account for more than 50 per cent of global methane emissions from human activity.
Most of the coal industry has not committed to reducing its methane emissions. Other high-emitting countries have yet to announce their commitments to reduce methane emissions. Countries like Algeria, China, India, Iran, Russia, Syria, Thailand and Venezuela, which account for nearly 45 per cent of global energy-related methane emissions, have not joined GMP.
In 2024, only about 30 Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC) mentioned specific measures for reducing energy-related methane emissions. However, only nine provided quantitative targets for these reductions.
NDCs are a nation’s climate action plan under the Paris Agreement. With the next set of NDCs for 2035 expected this year, countries may include their targets to address methane emissions. So far, new NDCs from Brazil, Canada, the United Arab Emirates and the United Kingdom have included measures for reducing methane emissions from the energy sector.
Many nations tend to underestimate methane emissions. IEA’s estimate of energy-related methane emissions globally is about 80 per cent higher than the total reported by countries to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). This gap, it added, was the narrowest in Europe.
To slash 75 per cent of methane emissions from the oil and gas sector as well as the coal sector, a funding of $175 billion and $85 billion, respectively, would be needed. IEA recommended that fossil fuel companies should bear the primary responsibility for abating methane emissions, as the average annual spending on these measures would account for less than 2 per cent of the net income the industry generates annually.
The financing gap for fossil fuel methane abatement in low- and middle-income countries is around $60 billion, with roughly $40 billion for active operations and $20 billion for abandoned facilities.